A local agriculture expert shares that this year has been a different setup to the crop planting season.

Landus Cooperative Field Agronomist Dan Bjorklund says compared to the last few years where farmers had a smooth transition into the planting season from the winter time, this year has been anything but smooth. He points out that soil conditions have been colder than average, along with lots of precipitation has made it difficult for farmers to plant more than one or two days at a time. 

Bjorklund details one other issue that could develop is the early stages of corn stalk rot with a nuisance called fusariums. He explains that these fusariums thrive in cold and wet soils that will sit in the root system of a corn plant as it grows.

“They won’t necessarily hurt right now, you don’t even recognize it. But what happens is in the fall, when the plants start drawing down then they become what they call, ‘Saprophytic (organisms).’ They like dead materials, so if corn plants are trying to dry down the corn and it’s going through that senescence stage, they’ll start eating that interior part of that stalk and that’s what causes those stalk rots.”  

Bjorklund suggests for farmers that it might be a difficult thing to do, but to wait until the soil is fit to plant, or the struggle will continue throughout the growing and harvest seasons. He anticipates planting season to go past the end of April.